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Question

Recovery HD - Not in the 'Option' boot list after encrypting

  • November 1, 2012
  • 4 replies
  • 11 views

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I'm using Casper (8.6) to deploy an encryption configuration for FileVault to a Mountain Lion image (vanilla). Before encrypting I have a fully functional recovery partition. After I apply the encryption configuration to the machine and reboot I no longer see the recovery partition when I hold down the 'Option' key for a list of boot-able devices. If I try to boot directly to the recovery partition using Command-R it instead boots into Internet Recovery (at which point I can successfully unlock and decrypt the drive using terminal commands and the encryption key from the JSS). After decrypting completely the original recovery partition reappears as a boot-able option. I'm using a standard encryption configuration of institutional and private key set to current or next user launching. Has anyone ever seen this behavior before?

4 replies

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  • Valued Contributor
  • November 1, 2012

well it makes sense does it not?
the whole disk is encrypted, the only boot method that is going to work is command r besides a normal boot.
same thing happens with PGP whole disk encryption.


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  • Contributor
  • November 1, 2012

yeah, that's normal and called out in apple's documentation somewhere- you just hold down command-r to boot the recovery HD even though it won't appear in the boot manager.


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  • Author
  • Contributor
  • November 1, 2012

Interesting. When I hold down Command-R though it goes to Internet Recovery, not my Recovery HD. The Recovery HD was created when I did this fresh Mountain Lion install from USB to an empty drive. I'm not overly concerned I guess since the Internet Recovery does indeed work for the purpose of unlock/decrypt.


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  • Honored Contributor
  • November 2, 2012

I am seeing the same thing, I was not worried either...

C